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IN modern discussions of Christian Theism it has come to be a commonplace that the Christian idea of God must ascribe to Him both Immanence and Transcendence. This twofold relation between God and the world is often described as the characteristic feature of the Christian conception of God, and Theism is contrasted with Pantheism on the supposition that the latter is a doctrine of pure immanence which leaves no room for transcendence. I do not question the truth of what is intended by that phrase, but the expression is not without difficulties. The habit of describing theories which have a pantheistic tendency as theories of “ pure immanence ” is surely due to a confusion. Any pantheistic or absolutist theory must really repudiate the notion of immanenee, for immanence implies the existence of something other than the Deity or Spirit who is said to be immanent, i.e. that in which He is immanent, Hence it appears that immanence and transcendence are correlative terms and any view which holds the divine immanence in the proper sense must also hold the divine transcendence.
The idea of immanence is, of course, connected with spatial images which it is not easy to discard completely even when we admit theoretically their purely symbolical character. Probably many who use the term cannot divest themselves of the idea that by transcendence they are committed to the picture of God seated in the heavens, [ p. 133 ] above, or at any rate outside, the world. When we make a serious effort to define the meaning of transcendence with no reference to space we become aware that the significance of the term is by no means so obvious as we had imagined. Clearly we cannot think of transcendence without thinking of something which is transcended. The obvious answer to the question, What does God transcond? is that He transcends the universe. But it is obvious that the word universe is highly ambiguous. By it we mean sometimes the whole contents of space, the natural order regarded as a system complete in itself. But apart from the difficulty that the real existence of such a system is open to grave doubt, we have to consider the obvious fact that finite minds, on most views of the nature of mind, transcend the physical universe. When we speak of the divine transcendence we certainly mean that God is more than “nature”, but we mean much more. Again, we may mean by “ the universe ” the whole of being, including God. In this sense of the word we could not say that God transcends the universe. Or we might mean that there is a whole of being apart from God, and if there is, clearly, by definition, God must transcend it. But here again the assertion that there is any whole of being apart from God may be denied and, I think, would be denied by any intelligent theist. Since the word “ universe ” covers such confusion and should never be used without a careful definition we may be well advised to make no use of it in attempting to describe what we mean by transcendence.
Plainly we can consider our experience at different levels, and at each level it seems to suggest a relative independence of all other levels. Thus we may take experience at the level of sense-perception, and this, considered systematically, leads us to the conception of the [ p. 134 ] realm of “nature”. Or we may take our experience as active beings, with purpose and values; and if we consider this deeply we are led to the conception of history. Each of these levels seems, while we are thinking and acting within it, to be self-contained, though in fact it is not so. Though the life of sense-perception and the concept of nature are apparently irrelevant when we are concerned with history and moral effort, in fact the senselevel and nature are presupposed ; and, in the same way, we cannot wholly abstract ourselves from our historical situation and become completely immersed in the world of sense-perception and natural science, for both we and our science are parts of an historical process. The fact remains, however, that experience does fall into segments, phases, or levels which have a relative, though not an absolute, independence. The immanence of God means then that no aspect or phase, even though fully completed according to its order, could fully manifest the Being of God. Though nature were adequately known we should not thereby adequately know God; though history were finally completed and its implications understood, we should not thereby have the whole nature of God. And correlative with this affirmation of transcendence is the affirmation of God’s immanence. There is no level or grade of being which is without the presence of God. He is within it, not simply in the sense that He acts upon it, as we might metaphorically say that a man is present wherever his influence extends, but the life of God is in each grade of being. And further, it is this immanent life of God which furnishes the signs and indications of transcendence.
There are two aspects of transcendence which ought to be kept distinct from one another. On the one hand, there is the obvious transcendence of which we are aware [ p. 135 ] when we consider the different orders or types of being. The merely material is the basis of the higher and different order of being—life—which, at the same time, comes out of the material and uses the material for an instrument. Mind again is a different order of being from the merely living, though mind is based upon life and emerges from it, in its turn using the living organism as its instrument. The higher order of being—spirit—which is mind illuminated by the eternal values of goodness, beauty, and truth— is rooted in mind and grows from it, making mind in turn its servant. Thus there is a transcendence in every level of being, in the sense that it tends to become something higher than itself. And it would follow from this that no complete account of any order of being, save the highest, can be given solely from within that order. If we wish really to know what it is, we need to know what it tends to become and what it subserves.
But secondly, beyond this tendency to actual selftranscendence which arises from the existence of various orders of being and their interpenetration, transcendence presents itself in another form. The study of any order of existence with a view to its comprehension reveals the need for postulating some principles or factors which are not themselves given as part of that order, or perhaps more accurately are not of the nature of that aspect of experience with which wo are dealing. For example, out of the perceptions of sense we build the conception of an order of nature, but that order of nature, which is senseperception systematized and “ understood ”, is no longer just sense-perception ; universals of various kinds have entered in and, as we shall sce, nature is not intelligible apart from super-nature. In the same way, when we isolate the living from the inert and deal with the phenomena of life as relatively distinct and constituting a [ p. 136 ] separate sphere of being, we find that the full understanding of life requires us to make use of conceptions which are not drawn from the biological order but from one which transcends it, We shall return to these points later in the present chapter and attempt to demonstrate their truth. Here we are concerned simply to propound the thesis that wherever we take experience, at whatever level wo begin our investigation, we come upon transcendence and that in a twofold manner, the temporal and the timeless ; there is an actual tendency of one level of being to pass into another ; but this is probably only an aspect of that more profound transcendence, through which one order of being, even regarded as a subsistent whole, cannot be explained on principles drawn only from that order.
The doctrine of the divine Transcendence is, of course, more than this. It asserts more than the fact that existence falls into orders or levels and that the meaning of the lower depends upon the higher. The ladder of being by which we ascend through the orders from matter to spirit leads, in the conviction of religion, to the supreme Being who is the Transcendent One, beyond all orders of being, but at the same time the One whose presence with every order and level gives them their existence and constitutes them into orders, and into an order. This absolute transcendence is safeguarded and expressed in the doctrine of Creation. All existence is interdependent, but all existence is, in the end, dependent upon God. Here we have the article on which belief in a Transcendent God ultimately rests. The Creator transcends all creatures, not as being one of many or one order among others, but as the active Will in which they take their origin. But the idea of transcendence is also closely associated with another conception not less vital for [ p. 137 ] genuine religio—that of the Deus absconditus. The absolute transcendence of God means that He is in His nature incomprehensible by our minds, and this assertion, which is a commonplace in the utterances of religious spirits of every creed, is a necessary consequence of the idea of transcendence as we have tried to analyse it. If no order of being can be fully comprehended save from the standpoint of one which is higher and more concrete, it is clear that God cannot be understood. The mystery which religion has always held to be the ultimate goal of theological inquiry is not a device for burking awkward questions. On the contrary, any doctrine of God which does not leave Him in the end the Deus absconditus is necessarily false. This truth, which is trite enough, is nevertheless one which we must keep steadily in mind when we are confronted with the chief paradoxes of Theism. The fact of the profoundly mysterious being of the Transcendent God has sometimes been confused with the absurd suggestion of Herbert Spencer that the ground of the universe is unknowable and may be equated with God on this account. The incomprehensibility of God is not equivalent to His unknowability. A Deity who was unknowable in the proper meaning of the word would be as useless for the purpose of religion as he would be contradictory for thought. It would be impossible to worship a being of whom we could know nothing at all, and it is unmeaning to assert the existence of a “something I know not what”. The position in which we find ourselves with respect to a transcendent Deity is, to some extent, analogous with the relation of a dog to human beings. The mind of the human being is not absolutely opaque to the dog, because the dog can, in some measure, sympathize with and do the will of the man, but a full understanding of the man is beyond the animal’s power. [ p. 138 ] The dog’s experience goes some of the way with the human, but not all the way.
The incomprehensibility of God, then, must be distinguished from His unknowability. But a further consequence arises from the postulate of the divine transcendence. The real knowledge of God which we possess is necessarily of a symbolical character. The divine Life, Mind, or Experience is indeed really Life, Mind, and Experience, and therefore really to be understood in terms of our life, our mind, and our experience, but not wholly understood, for it is life, mind, and experience at the level of the transcendent.
We must now proceed to consider some of the reasons for affirming the transcendence of God. The purpose of this work is not primarily apologetic, and we are not therefore directly concerned with the defence of a religious view of the world. The presupposition with which we have approached the doctrine of God is that there is some content of truth and reality in the religious experience of the human race and that the Christian experience of God is religious experience in its purest and highest form. It is a corollary of the position here adopted that the fundamental ground for belief in God is the character of human experience. The so-called “ proofs” of God’s existence of various kinds are, in essence, simply attempts to articulate aspects of the general consciousness of God which is present wherever the human mind rises above the level of the brute and becomes capable of general ideas, of ideals, and of the recognition of value. It follows also from this position that the divine Nature is ultimately known by the same means. The being and attributes of God must be determined in our thought by that experience of God which is the sole reason for believing in His existence. That does not mean, of course, that every kind [ p. 139 ] of religious experience must be accepted at its face value and that we need affirm the reality of the deities or devils which the lower religions have imagined. Enough has been said in previous chapters on the development of the idea of God to make it clear that our view cannot be accused of this absurdity. But if we find that there is a character running through all the conceptions of deity from the most primitive to the highest, wo may safely declare that this character corresponds to a necessary clement in the religious experionce itself. Such a character we find in transcendence. It is of the essence of any God who is really worshipped that He is transcendent. If we may refer to our analysis of the religious consciousness, it will be remembered that we found religion to consist in the intuition of, the faith in, a response to the self which went beyond the responsiveness on which knowledge, morality, and art depend. The God then with whom religion is concerned is necessarily one who transcends every level of experience.
The traditional theology in its Scholastic form relied upon two arguments in particular which wero believed to demonstrate the existence of God apart from any reference to revelation or, we may add, to religious experience. It is well known that these were the Cosmological and Teleological arguments. It would be out of place here to disouss their logical value, and it will be sufficient to remark that few philosophers at the present day would be willing to allow their demonstrative force. It is obvious that they do not really proceed in the rarified atmosphere of pure logic. But for the existence of the historical religions and of the religious consciousness they would never have been put forward. They assume the existence of the idea of God as understood by religion, and St. Thomas Aquinas reveals the necessary background [ p. 140 ] on which his reasoning proceeds by the phrase “ and this all men call God ” with which he concludes his demonstrations. The arguments though not demonstrative are not devoid of force. As we have said above, they are formulations of aspects of that transcendent suggestion which all experience contains. The 'Theist holds that the existence of God is the most reasonable hypothesis to account for this universal aspect of the experienced world, and the “ proofs” are one of the ways in which this aspect may be presented—an abstract and formal-way.
Both the Cosmological and the Teleological arguments in their traditional form “prove” the existence of a transcendent God. In the Cosmological argument. we trace the series of finite causes back to its origin in the First Cause, who is the Uncaused Cause and the source of every secondary cause. So presented the argument seems to issue in the idea of God who is transcendent but not immanent. 'The series of causes implies the distinotness of every cause, and therefore of the First Cause, from all the others. A God who is the first cause in this sense would seem to be excluded from the series except in so far as the result of His initial action persists in them. I do not say that this has been the inference drawn from the argument by the orthodox theologians who have relied upon it, and certainly it would be far from the truth to hold that St. Thomas has no doctrine of divine immanence, but the cosmological argument, presented in its simplest form, has been the foundation of Deism, and not without reason. The traditional form of the Teleological argument has had the same tendency. From the evidences of design and purpose in the world it infers the existence of a designer or a Gubernator. But when the inference is made in this abstract manner, we have the [ p. 141 ] obvious suggestion that the Divine Ruler stands outside the material which He moulds, like the artisan or the potter with his wood or clay.
Every aspect of our experience, when we attempt to understand it, has a transcendent reference, we have suggested, and gives marks of its dependence upon that which is beyond itself. We must now briefly expand this assertion. Experienced reality may be considered from the three standpoints, nature, life, and history. We must consider each of these.
The philosophy of nature has not perhaps up to the present been a fruitful branch of speculation and has often consisted in the laying down by distinguished thinkers of what on a priori grounds nature, in their opinion, ought to be. Recent years, however, have seen a new type of philosophy of nature which promises better things. We have remarked that the development of physics has compelled scientists themselves to raise some of the problems of philosophy in the course of their researches, and it is from the ranks of mathematicians and physicists that the new philosophies of nature are drawn. No writer among them could be better worthy of attention than Dr. A. N. Whitehead. He has clearly before him the problems of modern physics and has made a strenuous and original attempt to grapple with the meaning of nature.
The nature which consisted of a number of things in motion has long been discarded, and it is clear that if we are to have units at all they must be of a more dynamic character. In Whitehead’s terminology the natural world is a complex of “concrete occasions”, of events, that is, which are of “four dimensions ”, having volume and duration. But these units, as we have said, form a complex, and are thus inter-related. They do so because it is one of their characteristics to be “ prehensive ”.
[ p. 142 ]
They are somehow adjusted to, almost aware of, other events and of the general pattern or organism of which they are members. But each event has an individuality of its own. Obviously it cannot consist in prehensiveness only, for in that case there would be nothing to prehend. The special peculiarity of an event arises from the manner in which it combines in a concrete occasion “ universals ”, which Whitehead calls “ eternal objects”, such as shape and colour. But these universals alone would not be sufficient to account for and interpret nature. We have still to-explain why these concrete events happen and form a unity or inter-related whole. We are thus led to the idea of an active Source of limitation and determination which is distinct from the whole system of concrete oceasions.[1]
The details of this elaborate philosophy of nature, of which the foregoing paragraph is a very imperfect summary, are not here in discussion. The point of interest is that this attempt to think out the significance of a natural order issues in a view which admits two transcendent factors. The universals or “eternal objects” are, of course, closely analogous to Plato’s ideal forms and the “ intelligible world ” of the later Platonism ; but apart from any historical affiliations, the universals which Whitehead requires have some kind of being which is certainly not entirely within the natural order. The idea of a Deity who transcends both the “eternal objects” and the “concrete occasions” of which nature consists is not introduced by this philosopher as a concession to the religious prejudices of the ordinary person. On the contrary, without the conception of the Determiner the account of nature cannot be completed. It may well be [ p. 143 ] that the philosophy of nature which Whitehead has given us is open to criticism and revision, and it would be, in my opinion, a mistake to build Christian theology on the particular metaphysic which he has elaborated with such impressive power. We are referring to him here as the most important contemporary example of the truth for which we are contending, that any philosophical consideration of “nature” is compelled to postulate some principle or principles which go beyond nature. Nature, whatever we may mean by that ambiguous term, is not self-explanatory.
It is well known that biology is rent at the present time by a fundamental controversy between the defenders of the older mechanistic conception and those who hold that mechanical ideas are quite inadequate even for the limited aims of science. Wo observed in the preceding chapter that the theory of evolution appears to be entering on a new phase and that the problems of newness and value in the process of evolution have been shown to be insoluble on the principles of the older naturalism. Consequently we have a development of “vitalism” in various forms. The conception of an immanent “ lifeforce” is not an easy one to make definite, and it would be impossible here to examine the very various forms of the theory-which have been suggested. It will perhaps be sufficient to point out that the life-force is the idea of reality which is, in some sense, transcendent : it transcends the material world in which it finds some kind of home, and also the particular living things in which it finds some kind of expression. Thus we find an English exponent of Vitalism writing: “using the language of metaphor we may say that life enters into matter, animates it and gives form and shape to its material setting. Every separate vital unit constituted in this way [ p. 144 ] is a living organism; each is the objectivation of the force of life at a different level ”.[2]
The theory of emergent evolution, however, intends to avoid the transcendence which lurks in the theory of vitalism. The invocation of any power, principle, or force from outside is utterly renounced, even though that principle be not God but an “ entelechy ” or dan vital. The emergent theory distinguishes between two types of events within the process of evolution, “ resultant” events and “emergent ” events or qualities. The latter kind of event, as the name indicates, cannot be explained as the composition of already existing conditions, and cannot therefore be predicted before it happens, though itis, nolessthan a “resultant”, a natural product. “Under what I call emergent evolution stress is laid on the incoming of the new ; salient examples are afforded in the advent of life, in the advent of mind, and in the advent of reflective thought.”[3]
We are all familiar with the suggestions which have been made to base the interpretation of religious experience on the emergent or the vitalistic theories of evolution. It is held that the essential element, or the permanently valuable element, in religion can be justified without the postulate of transcendence. Professor Alexander and Mr. Julian Huxley, though it would appear with some important disagreement in detail, think that the direction or nisus in evolution will furnish us with grounds for religious reverence.[4] According to Professor Alexander’s scheme, deity is that quality which is next to emerge, that towards which the nisus of evolution is [ p. 145 ] tending ; so that we can hold that deity is, in a way, an explanation of the world-movement, though not itself as yet existing. It would be easy to indulge in satirical remarks at the expense of this version of religion ; and it must be admitted that, in some of our less exalted moods, we might find a certain attractiveness in the thought of a deity who is always a little way ahead ; we can at least be certain that we shall never meet him face to face. But this evolutionary religion does in truth satisfy one of the most important aspects of Christian experience, that which aspires towards the Kingdom of God as a condition which is not yet in being but has the most undoubted right to be.
I confess that I find it difficult to understand precisely what the religion of evolution really proposes to us as the object of our reverence. Sometimes it seems to invite our worship and aspiration towards some unknown and problematic future development of life. In that case, we may note that it is a religion of transcendence ; its object is not found within the circle of existence. The deity who is not yet in time transcends the temporal order just as definitely as the Deity who is eternal. This form of evolutionary religion is a doctrine of temporal transcendence. But probably the really powerful form of this type of religion is one which concentrates attention on the life-force or the nisus in evolution (in this connexion there is no real difference between the two conceptions). This is the religion of which Mr. Wells and Mr. Shaw are the prophets, and it expresses itself in the favourite phrase of the former that the life-force is “making use of him”. Here if anywhere is the religious thrill. But, with the greatest respect for a genuine spiritual experience, we may ask, What does it really come to? If we put it at the highest, the life-force is an unconscious [ p. 146 ] striving. “It begins unconsciously to struggle to overcome limitations.” Moved by an instinctive impulse it surges against matter.” Such are the descriptive phrases which its defenders use.[5] When we meet with a crude theology we may be forgiven a crude rejoinder. This is nothing but the revival of zoolatry. We are not unacquainted with a type of life and sentiency which “ unconsciously struggles” “ moved by instinctive impulse ”. It is the kind of existence we suppose to be possessed by the worm. It may be doubted whether the human race will find it consonant with its dignity to worship a worm, nor do I think it will take seriously the excuse that the worm is very large.
We must, however, attempt to estimate the value of the conception of emergence apart from the somewhat absurd theologies which have been deduced from it. I wish to maintain that emergence has a great use as a descriptive formula but is quite useless as a principle of explanation. The natural order has, in fact, this emergent quality, and we are indebted to the philosophers who have insisted upon it and invented a convenient phrase to indicate it; but to put forward “emergence” as throwing any light upon our ultimate problems is surely to miss the point. After all we cannot be deprived of the right to ask why the emergent qualities emerge. One must feel respect for Professor Alexander’s “natural piety ” with which he exhorts us to accept newness as a fact. But we may feel some legitimate suspicion of a piety which forbids us to ask questions, and sets up a “ no thoroughfare ” notice for the mind.
The concept of “ emergence ” is really an attempt to find some middle way between teleology and mechanism. Purely mechanistic schemes of evolution are plainly [ p. 147 ] bankrupt from a philosophical point of view. They can give no plausible account of the coming into existence of really new qualities, and they have nothing intelligible to say on the subject’of value. The effort is therefore made to abandon a merely materialist hypothesis and, at the same time, to keep clear of the idea of teleology. But the middle term does not really exist. In vain we seek for a vera causa which is neither efficient nor final. And we may easily convince ourselves that the theories of emergent evolution are teleological in implication, if we consider the writings of those philosophers who have made use of the conception. Dr. Whitehead would not, I think, deny that purposiveness finds a place in his philosophy of the natural order, as indeed the summary which we have given above sufficiently indicates. Dr. Lloyd Morgan again, though insisting upon the right to interpret phenomena in the manner of his revised “ naturalism ”, that is, as a complex of efficient causes, maintains also that another point of view is equally legitimate and necessary, that of a Theism for which the natural process of evolution is the expression of the Mind and Will of God. He objects only, as many theologians have done, to the idea that the divine Will is manifested in interruptions of the natural order. Dr. Alexander will, it is true, have nothing to do with the conception of purpose or teleology. But though the word may be tabooed the thought will not remain outside. For we discover that his philosophical interpretation of religion and of value rests upon the assumption that there is a “ nisus ” in evolution which has pushed on towards higher types of existence and will continue to do so. It is not clear why Alexander believes that the nisus will constantly behave in this satisfactory way, and he probably relies here upon an act of faith ; but the point for us is that, the nisus in things is the [ p. 148 ] significant fact of the world in his view, and that this tendency towards value is nothing but what we mean by immanent teleology.
But reflection seems to show that immanent teleology itself is only an imperfect and provisional idea. If we try to think it out we are compelled to supplement immanent teleology by transcendent teleology ; or in other words, every teleological process implies transcendence. Consider the nature of a teleological series of events. I imagine we should agree that a teleological series differs from a non-teleological in that all the members of the series, and the series as a whole, are to some extent determined by the final event of the series, and that consequently the series, and every member of the series, are not explicable apart from the final event. If trivial illustration may be permitted, let us suppose that I wall: across the room to turn on the electric light ; then all my movements are determined by the last event, the pressing of the switch, and no movement is capable of being fully understood apart from that. If on the other hand, inspired by joie de vivre or some less innocent spirit, I wave my limbs about in a random manner, the last movement throws no more light on the series than any other. In short, some kind of causal connexion exists in a teleological series between the final event and all the other events in it. It would seem, however, that what does not exist cannot act, but that: a teleological series implies the action of the last term before it actually comes into existence.
It needs no great discernment to perceive that we have been brought back to an old argument in a new form, or rather in a new setting. The teleological argument reappears. For it is obvious that the only way known to us in which an event can exist before it happens is as a [ p. 149 ] thought in a mind. Transcendent teleology can only be interpreted in some such way. Perhaps the reader will allow himself to be reminded that we are not here attempting to outline a teleological view of the world or to deal with the numerous problems which it suggests. We are not even contending here that the events which constitute what we call the order of nature are through and through purposive. We are simply concerned to demonstrate that any satisfactory theory of nature will imply a transcendent reference. We have seen that evolution cannot even be adequately described without some concept like emergence. We have seen that emergence cannot be distinguished from immanent teleology. And we have soon that immanent teleology is itself unintelligible unless we conceive it against the background of a transcendent teleology.
We must now turn to consider briefly the aspect or level of experience which is summed up under the term history, with the same purpose as we had in view when we were discussing the philosophy of nature—to show that its interpretation involves a transcendent reference. The existence of a modern philosophical theory which explicitly denies the thesis which we are maintaining will perhaps help us to keep the debate within reasonable limits. As is well known, Signor Croce holds that history is reality and that there is no need or justification for the assertion of any Reality, spiritual or material, beyond history. If it can be shown that his view does not meet the demands of history itself we shall have a striking indication of the presence of transcendent elements within the historical process. The historical idealism of the Italian school is derived from Hegel, but it has carried the immanence of Spirit, which was a part of his doctrine, to the extreme limit. Hegel conceived the whole development [ p. 150 ] of the actual universe, and particularly the course of human history, as the manifestation of Spirit through a dialectical process. But there seems no doubt that it is an essential part of his theory that the process of development is not itself the Reality. Behind and within the process is the universal Idea or Mind which realizes itself in time but does not itself have a temporal existence. “The principles of the minds of peoples in a necessary sequence of stages are themselves only moments of the one universal Mind, which elevates and completes itself in history through them into a self-comprehending totality.”[6]
The New Idealism has endeavoured to get rid of the last vestiges of the scandal of transcendence which remains in Hegel under the form of the universal Mind, and has formulated a doctrine of complete immanence. For it the historical process is the progressive life of the Spirit, and Spirit has no being beyond the process. Nor indeed is there any reality outside history, for the common view that human history takes place within a framework of “nature” which exists independently of history, is, in their opinion, an illusion no less than the belicf that there is a transcendent Mind. It would be out of place here to enter into the intricate refinements of Croce’s thought, but we must observe that the idealism and the opposition to transcendence of this school are both uncompromising. There is no reality which is not mind, or perhaps rather, active thinking. The idea, then, that the past exists in some manner independently of mind is untenable, and we are led to the conclusion that the past exists only as an element in the present thinking, which is the sole reality. That the past exists somehow [ p. 151 ] in the present is not an unfamiliar doctrine, but so long as we hold that it has some other existence or reality as well we have still a trace of transcendence, for the past, in that case, is not wholly contained within the present activity of thought. It is therefore no wilful paradox but a necessary consequence of fundamental principles that all being of the past, as past, is denied.
Naturally Croce has said much on the writing of history and has impressively maintained that the true historian is one for whom the past becomes the living present and in whose soul the thoughts and emotions of another age “vibrate again”. But even one who accepts whole-heartedly the idealist position and holds with full conviction that there is no existence apart from mind may feel gravo difficulties about this historical idealism. Perhaps most of them come to a head when we ask, What do we mean by historical truth ? I cannot see how on the theory of Croce we can avoid complete historical scepticism. We should agree, probably, that some histories are better than others, and that “ better ” in this connexion has some relation with “truer”. The events which are recounted are more accurately determined, more wisely selected, and more adequately interpreted. But, in Croce’s view, what can these words mean? If every attempt to write history is a revival of the past in the present consciousness of the historian, and the past has no existence outside the present consciousness, what basis is left for discriminating the relative values of rival histories of the same period ? One man’s re-living of the past is as good as another’s. Of course this problem of truth and error in the writing of history is only one aspect of the general problem of error, which receives very scanty attention in this theory of immanent idealism. And plainly it must be difficult to give any account of [ p. 152 ] error if there is, by hypothesis, no objective reality to be known. Croce has, it is true, some remarks on error. He holds that it is due to the intrusion of practical motives into theoretical work, and consequently, we may suppose, the errors of historians are the result of preoccupation with personal or social hopes and fears. But we may ask whether this partly true remark throws any light on our real difficulty. We want to know not so much how error arises but what error is. If we are told that every opinion and every object of thought is “ within the Spirit ” which is always present Spirit, we are puzzled to know how there can be any difference between the true and the false.
We are Ied to the conclusion that this attempt to develop an idealistic philosophy of pure immanence fails in its object. Even if we allow that history is the sole concrete reality and abandon the conception of an order of nature independent of history, we find that we cannot have even history without the tacit presupposition of something which transcends history. I should agree that it is most true that we cannot have facts which are “ mere facts”, and there are no events which have any existenco for us in which interpretation of some kind is not inextrieably mingled. A fact or an event which is entirely independent of some mind or experience is to me unintelligible. But it follows that we needs must retain some universal Mind or Experience in order to have any meaning for historical truth. Without it we are abandoned to subjectivism and caprice. It would, of course, be too hasty to infer directly from this transcendent implication of history the truth of Theism, and doubtless some views of Reality which are not Theistic can avoid the dilemma to which “ historical idealism” leads; but at least the Theistic hypothesis, simple-minded and mythological [ p. 153 ] as it appears to Signor Croce to be, seems to support our conviction that there is a real history of the past and some meaning in describing an historical narrative as true. Historical idealism, because it is a doctrine of pure immanence, really destroys history : Theism, because it is a doctrine of transcendence as well as immanence, secures it. For the theist holds that true history is the history which God knows, and the truest historical narrative is that which approximates most closely to the knowledge of the eternal Mind.
We have thus found that the proposal to treat history as the sole existence and to eliminate from it all transscendent relations is no less untenable than the similar proposal to regard “nature” as a self-subsistent and self-explanatory whole. We have space here only to refer to some other lines of reflection which tend to the same conclusion. The place and function of great personalities in the development of history is a matter of controversy, but it would be contrary to the most obvious facts of experience to hold that history has, in the last resort, nothing to do with persons. Yet this is the conclusion to which a purely immanent conception of history is led. The historical process itself is the reality of the world and the persons who appear within it are no more than bubbles in the stream. “ This historical web ”, writes Croce, “ which is and is not the work of individuals, constitutes the work of the universal Spirit, of which individuals are manifestations and instruments.”[7] But it may be questioned whether even the word “ instruments” is really in harmony with the doctrine of pure immanence, for it implies a relation of transcendence between the Spirit and the instrument. There is no point in speaking of an instrument unless there is some distinction [ p. 154 ] between it and the user. But in any case, a serious consideration of the place of persons in history is bound to expose the hollowness of the doctrine of immanence as held by “historical idealism”. There can be little question that an essential element of “experience as history ” is that it is the experience by persons of the consequences of personal activities. A philosophy which has no ultimately significant place for persons may be very respectable on other grounds, but it is certainly not a “historical ” philosophy. But when once we have admitted the reality of persons and personal activity we have broken the chain of immanence. Something transcendent to the process has been found, for if the historical process is itself, in some degree at least, the creation of persons, we cannot dissolve those persons into the historical process without remainder. However much we may allow the influence of circumstance and environment to have contributed to the content of the personal experience and to determining the nature of its action, the person is not the process by which it is influenced and on which it acts. The person transcends the history of which, in one aspect, it is a part.[8]
If the reader is not weary of the subject he may be invited to consider one further matter which throws light on the transcendent implications of history. It is not quite clear what kind of study the writing of history really is. Plainly the simple-minded belief that it is the narrative of events as they actually occurred will not take us very far. Even if there are such things as “ brute facts,” which may be questioned, historical writing is obviously not a description of all the facts but a selection and an interpretation. We may agree with Croce that history is not a science in the sense of a natural science. [ p. 155 ] It does not discover casual laws which may be made the basis of prediction of the future. But, at the same time, history is a kind of Wissenschaft, not concerned therefore solely with particular events but with “ universal.” The writings of Professors H. Rickert and E. Troeltsch have drawn attention to the importance of values in the work of the genuine historian.[9] And this is surely true. In history we are concerned not only with the external events and their chronological order, but far more with the “spirit of the timo,” with that complex of valuejudgments which, half-consciously, the men of the time strove to express in action and institution. The historian may indeed stop there, and when he has disclosed the ideas of value which actually prevailed leave to others the estimation of their comparative worth. But it would seem that the full task of history has not been accomplished, and it certainly has not answered the question which is in our mind, unless it goes beyond this. History is an interpretation of the past through the ideas of value which dominated its various phases. But it is always also, explicitly or implicitly, a judgment of the past, and for this reason has a practical function in the present. He who judges the past proclaims himself in that act as being in possession of some absolute standard or at least as holding that an absolute standard exists—one, that is, which transcends the passing periods.
If this view of the purpose of history is true, the thought is not far off that the writing of history involves the appeal to a Truth and Reality which are not historical. The historical process may be conceived as a manycoloured appearance in time of the Absolute Value which nover in time can be perfectly expressed. Some such [ p. 156 ] conception was in the mind of one of the greatest of modern English thinkers when he wrote: “ Our world and every other possible world are from one side worthless equally, As regions of mero fact and event, the bringing into being and the maintenance of temporal existence, they all alike have no value. It counts for nothing where or when such existence is taken to have its place, The difference of past and future, of dreaming and waking, of “on earth ” or elsewhere, are one and all immaterial. Our life has value only because and in so far as it-realizes in fact that which transcends time and existence.”[10]
4
Concept of Nature ; Science in the Modern World ; Religion in the Making ; cf. also article by A. E. Taylor, Dublin Review, No. 362. ↩︎
Matter, Life and Value, by C. B, M. Joad, p, 139. ↩︎
C. Lloyd Morgan: Emergent Evolution, p. 1. ↩︎
J. Huxley: Religion without Revelation. But I find it difficult to say exactly what Mr. Huxley means. There are, I think, two inconsistent views of religion suggested in his book. ↩︎
C. E. M. Joad, op. cit., p. 139. ↩︎
Philosophy of History : Werke, 1845, IX, p. 97, quoted Reyburn : Hegel’s Ethical Theory, p. 262. ↩︎
Phil. of the Practical. Pt. I, sect. 2, chap. 5. ↩︎
Cf. The Philosophy of Personality, by H. D. Oakeley, pp. 62 ff. ↩︎
See Troeltsch’s essay: Moderne Geschichtephilosophie in Gesammelte Schriften. Vol. II. ↩︎
F. H. Bradley: Essays on Truth and Reality, p. 468. ↩︎